Featured in Forbes.Com Article on Hiring During the Recession

The article reinforces a few key ideas – especially for small business owners and entrepreneurs:

Recession offers opportunity to hire top talent

First, The recession offers a wonderful opportunity to acquire top talent. Some outstanding candidates have been cast off for no fault of their own. Many companies in this recession have moved beyond getting rid of their deadwood and are now well into cutting right down to the bone – having to let go of some of their best talent for business survival.

However, these top 25% candidates are not desperate. They are very selective about which opportunities they will consider. These top talent candidates are well-networked, have multiple opportunities and “irons in the fire”, and don't need your job. You still have to apply the right mix of marketing, relationship building, and compelling opportunity to attract these great candidates.

Just because they are out of work doesn't mean it will be easy to acquire them.

Top talent will take your recruiting call

Secondly, almost all individuals in the top talent ranks who are currently employed will take a phone call from a recruiter, friend, former co-worker, network contact about a new opportunity. Almost everyone is concerned about their company's future success and whether the axe might fall next on their neck.

It's a great time to reach out into your network and see if there are some outstanding currently employed candidates who might want to consider your compelling opportunity.

Short window to find great candidates

Third, I see the opportunity of the recession to acquire great talent lasting about another 12-18 months. After the recovery begins, we'll be shifting back to a candidate's market in which you may never be able to acquire the type of talent available right now.

What strategies and tactics are you employing right now to find and acquire great talent for your company? Have you done a top-to-bottom assessment of your entire organization and selectively identified a few key roles that could be upgraded?

Don't procrastinate or you'll be kicking yourself in 12 months that you didn't act sooner.

Most Important – A Great Hiring Process

Fourth, and perhaps most important, you still need a great hiring process to separate the average performers from outstanding talent.

Our simple but effective Success Factor Methodology provides the tools, techniques, and strategies to allow you to train all your hiring managers to become great at the process of hiring top talent for their teams. Thousands of companies around the world have implemented the simple steps of the Success Factor Methodology and have dramatically improved their ability to find, assess, and hire top talent at every level in their organization.

About the Author

Barry Deutsch is a founding Partner of IMPACT Hiring Solutions, co-author of "You're NOT the Person I Hired", and "This is NOT the Position I Accepted". Barry is an award-winning international speaker, retained executive recruiter, and expert on hiring and retaining top talent, and executive job search.